Blake Crohan lifts Tulane baseball team past Towson

Freshman Blake Crohan watched as the ball left his bat and traveled to center field. He thought his 10th inning at-bat would score Matt Ryan from second. He didn’t think the ball would clear the fence.

Blake Crohan

But it did. Crohan hit the top of the green batter’s eye above the center-field wall at Greer Field at Turchin Stadium, giving Tulane a 4-2 victory over Towson on Friday night.

“We talked about putting it on the next guy especially in these later innings, ” Crohan said. “I was looking for a good pitch, and when I got one, it just ended up going out, ” said Crohan of his first collegiate home run. “I don’t hit a whole lot of balls out, not even in BP (batting practice), so I thought that was going to go off the wall. A lot of stuff went through my mind as the ball was in the air, but I was just excited to see it go out. “

The celebration carried into the clubhouse as Crohan, who was one of the last players to enter, was met with a shaving cream pie when he entered.

It was a slow offensive night for the Wave (7-6), who had scored 27 runs and had 39 hits in their past two games. Crohan’s walk-off hit was Tulane’s eighth, only the third time this season it didn’t have nine or more hits.

“There’s not a whole lot of things coming easy for us right now, ” Tulane Coach Rick Jones said. “Tonight, it was tough for us to score. Their pitching was real good, and they put pressure on us.”

Towson starter Nate Curd, who entered the game with a 8.36 ERA, threw seven strong innings, allowing six hits and two runs. He also had quick innings, staying under the 10-pitch mark three times.

But Curd’s performance, and that of reliever Drew Permison who gave up Crohan’s winning homer, was no match for the Tulane duo of starter Conrad Flynn and Nick Pepitone, who picked up his second win of the season.

Flynn went eight innings, allowing two runs on eight hits with six strikeouts. Pepitone threw two hitless innings with two strikeouts. Both pitchers benefited from some early aggressiveness from Towson, which had five first-pitch outs (fifth, sixth, seventh, ninth, 10th innings).

“It’s always good when you get a first-pitch out, ” Flynn said. “It builds momentum, and you get a rhythm, and it keeps your pitch count down.”

Pepitone came up with key strikeouts in both innings. He struck out Steve Rice to end the ninth and struck out Ben Winter second in the 10th inning to get to two outs with no one on. He walked Nick Natoli before getting Kurt Wertz to ground out.

The performance of both pitchers was a steadying of the ship after the Tulane pitching staff allowed 16 runs, 11 hits, eight walks and two hit batters in Tuesday’s 16-15 loss to UNO.

“We talked about it at Wednesday’s practice that it can’t be all talk; you just have to go out there and do it, ” Pepitone said. “Hopefully we showed some of these younger guys that you do have to just go out there and get it done.”

Green Wave freshman Brain Barry came up with the bases loaded and two outs in the ninth inning and looking for his first career hit. Towson pitched around Brennan Middleton, who was 2-of-2 with two walks, and walked him to load the bases and took their chances with Barry, who grounded out to shortstop to end the inning.

Tulane returns to action today with a doubleheader. Both games will be nine innings with Matt Petiton throwing the first game and left fielder/designated hitter Alex Byo getting his first career start in the second game. Byo made his first appearance for the Green Wave in last Tuesday’s 16-15 loss to UNO. He threw an inning in relief and allowed two runs and had a strikeout.

Hot hitting: Garrett Cannizaro extended his team-leading hitting streak to 12 games with a second-inning single, and Rob Segedin pushed his streak to 11 games also with a second-inning single. Tulane entered the weekend with a Conference USA-best .340 average.

Injury report: Tulane catcher/designated hitter Matt Shortall broke a bone in his finger against UNO. It is unclear when he will be back. Shortall has played in eight games with six starts and is hitting .364 with four RBIs.